So who is responsible for nerfing Butterfly Swords?

[Azaelas Fayth]

The funny thing with Axes is watching Idiots think you swing them from the Base of the Haft.

And the Gladius and Golok are nice...

[Azaelas Fayth]

"Normally we don't agree or like Cold Napalm, that is unless he is right. And right now I like him a lot."

JK:

I like Cold Napalm. I just couldn't help parody the quote from Garviel Loken from The Horus Heresy Series or Novels.

[Pirate]

Yar.

I'm mostly saddened by Deathshead not taking advantage of the opportunity I presented for him in my spoilered message to him. (the katana derailment with the potential flames that can burst free from under it are a close second cause of sadness). I was hoping he'd post again in reply to me so as to have a mature and level headed conversation about the design aspects of the butterfly swords. Alas, this has not yet happened.

I don't like to give either-or scenarios - as I find them rather base, black and white, and unrealistic to the circumstances of reality - so I hold that other unknown scenarios may be taking place... but the lack of return of Deathshead seems to me to be either because he actually did rage-quite again and will not return for another year, has read my message to him and refuses to respond (which would be truly unfortunate), or has read it and is taking his time to respond. I hope it is the latter.

*piratey-sigh*

~P

[Azaelas Fayth]

If he is the same Deathshead from the WotC & some other forums then it might be for the better.

[Odraude]

I haven't seen a katana thread since Ultimate Combat was announced. Kinda nice to see this pot stirred instead of another Paladin alignment/magic crafting thread... I guess.

[Hoplophobia]

While the OP was unnecessarily confrontational, they do sorta raise a good point. Why even bother making stats for this weapon and naming it when anybody with good sense would just use a dagger or a short sword and call it a "butterfly sword."

It is literally worse in almost every single way to a dagger. It costs 20gp to the dagger's 2gp, it does only slashing, while the dagger does piercing and slashing and can be thrown. The dagger is a simple weapon, and the butterfly sword martial.

The single thing it has is the monk quality, and something about being able to separate them as a free action. What is even the point of this thing? Does anybody even use them? If so, why?

Also: The Butterfly Sword isn't a light weapon. So you can't even TWF with something that seems to be implied to be used in pairs.

[Katz]

Hoplophobia wrote:

Also: The Butterfly Sword isn't a light weapon. So you can't even TWF with something that seems to be implied to be used in pairs.

Pretty sure it is a light weapon, actually

[Chemlak]

Hoplophobia wrote:

Also: The Butterfly Sword isn't a light weapon. So you can't even TWF with something that seems to be implied to be used in pairs.

Huh? Both UC and UE list the Butterfly Sword under... wait for it... Light Melee Weapons.

[Hoplophobia]

Oh, sure enough. My bad on that. Still...I don't understand the point of these weapons. The only thing still going for them over the bog standard dagger is the monk quality. And the monk would have to blow a feat on them just to be proficient with them.

[LazarX]

Prawn wrote:

I think in 1e, there was a table with speed factors and how different weapons fared against different types of armor. At that point there were tactical reasons beyond damage for every single weapons choice.

Yes it was.. it was a big comprehensive table that not a single DM in all my years of AD+D play ever used.

[Icyshadow]

I wish some of the houserules I use regularly were already as official rules in the Core Rulebook...

[Mikaze]

Odraude wrote:

I haven't seen a katana thread since Ultimate Combat was announced. Kinda nice to see this pot stirred instead of another Paladin alignment/magic crafting thread... I guess.

Does a paladin of Shizuru fall if she crafts her katana before being granted one by her lord or family?

Another vote here for "please don't make your opening posts toxic from the start". If simple civility is not enough motivation for that, consider that it makes it difficult to have, keep, and acquire nice things.

[LazarX]

Azaelas Fayth wrote:

@Piccolo: The sword was made from 2 types of Iron. The actual "Crappy" steel you refer to was only a small part the rest was a type of Iron. & The edge was ridiculously easy to fix with general maintenance.

And the Video would be better if he wasn't holding a Stainless Steel Replica...

& Actually realized that a Sword has been proven to slice through another sword or stone. Albeit under certain circumstances.

Certain circumstances is the key thing here. Under the right conditions, a cigarette can be pushed through a windshield and still be intact.

[Hoplophobia]

For instance, there are plenty of light Monk weapons that the Monk is already proficient with that either have a bigger damage die, or have other abilities. Such as the Nunchaku, Siangham, etc.

It's just an odd design choice. It's like somebody thought that a monk being able to TWF with short swords would be OP, so they had to make a nerfed monk shortsword. But then made a bunch of other weapons that are just as good as a short sword.

It's not so much it not making sense to the actual weapon. But more than it occupies a niche that seems to serve no logical purpose that even more than that, requires the one class that might use it to spend a feat on it.

[Skeld]

Hoplophobia wrote:

While the OP was unnecessarily confrontational, they do sorta raise a good point. Why even bother making stats for this weapon and naming it when anybody with good sense would just use a dagger or a short sword and call it a "butterfly sword."

It is literally worse in almost every single way to a dagger. It costs 20gp to the dagger's 2gp, it does only slashing, while the dagger does piercing and slashing and can be thrown. The dagger is a simple weapon, and the butterfly sword martial.

The single thing it has is the monk quality, and something about being able to separate them as a free action. What is even the point of this thing? Does anybody even use them? If so, why?

Also: The Butterfly Sword isn't a light weapon. So you can't even TWF with something that seems to be implied to be used in pairs.

PF, like 3.5e, only has so many weapon statistics (damage, weight, proficiency, etc.) that can be adjusted to make one weapon mechanically different from another. I would imagine it's a pain to adjust all the new weapons' parameters to make them different from all previous weapons and still make it sort-of realistic (if it's a real world weapon).

Personally, I think there's too much effort put into converting real-world niche weapons into something usable in PF. Take all the dagger-like weapons, give dagger stats, and allow players to call them whatever they like.

-Skeld

[Grey Lensman]

Pathfinder threads don't devolve into katana threads all that often because in this game the scimitar had already claimed ultimate sword status first.

Now all I have to do is make some popcorn.....bwahahaha!

[Pendagast]

Kain Darkwind wrote:

I've never actually seen a katana fanboy. I've seen plenty of anti-katana people, and plenty of accusations about 12d6 tank cutting power, but I've never actually seen a katana fanboy on any DnD boards, from WotC to Paizo.

The most I've seen are the people who argue, probably reasonably, for Japanese weapons/fighters to not be considered worthless and crap, against ARMA-type folks who argue that the European fighting dominance equates to rendering all other styles obsolete.

Euro-fanbois actually exist, but no katana fanbois. I wonder why that is, and why the perception is the reverse.

You must have missed the katana fan boy rave. It was a Tidal wave for a while.

Just wo we are all clear, the japanese armor/weapons combo never took over anything that wasn't also using the japanese weapon/armor combo. (basically it's own island) so the weapon/armor combo never met the other possibilities out there.

However, as soon as European style anything showed up on the island, everyone dropped their junk and wanted the new stuff. to the point of copying it in their own manufacturing, So if the attitude of how their own stuff compared to foreign stuff is any testimony, I think they knew there stuff wasn't all that good, but c'mon, all they had was some itty bitty islands to get their raw materials off of. What if all of Europe only had Ireland and Normandy to pull their Raw Materials out of? What would their stuff be like?

[Lamontius]

what the-
I feel like this thread is now trying to write the cliff notes to Guns, Germs & Steel except that it did not read the book first

what are you doing thread

what are you doing

[Pendagast]

Atarlost wrote:

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

I could take some time on my day off to explain why you're needlessly antagonistic, and how you have your facts wrong, and the game design reasons why the weapon is the way it is, but you failed to observe the most important rule of the messageboards: "Don't be a jerk. We want our messageboards to be a fun and friendly place."

It's right there underneath the "submit post" button.

I don't dispute that the OP was a jerk, but the butterfly sword really doesn't live up to its cost.

It's in the category of weapons whose only real difference from an existing simple weapon is that it has the monk property. These weapons have no reason to exist. There is absolutely no reason to have, for example, published the kama rather than giving sickles the monk property. They have nearly identical stats and derive from agricultural implements with the same purpose. The relation between the butterfly sword and the dagger is the same. Except you can throw a dagger or do piercing damage. The "extra" benefit a butterlfy sword sword has over a dagger is that you can draw two as one action, but you can already do that if you have the Two Weapon Fighting feat, without which drawing two is of no benefit. The sole mechanical benefit of the butterfly sword is something the monk should have had anyways since the original intent for flurry of blows was to act as TWF.

So you have a weapon that for any non-monk is strictly inferior to a pair of daggers, but that the monk is not naturally proficient with. If there are game design reasons for publishing such a joke of a weapon without even giving the only class that might ever want to use it proficiency I'd love to know then, because they must be wondrously subtle.

Well the main problem here was the originally campaign of pathfinder to be fully 3.5 compatible... no need to throw away all those books you have already invested in! (which are now fully dormant and replaced with paizo books)

I was one of the primary arguers for drawing down the number of weapons that there were (perfect example was kama/sickle) and allowing the monk to flurry with more weapons (like spear, short sword and dagger), I also thought monk should get access to padded armor (no one uses padded armor) and light shields.
Instead what has happened is adding more redundant weaponry with virtually the same stats. Coupled with the three versions of the whip/scorpion whip and what makes you proficient with what, the whole weapon conundrum has become dizzying.

The step should have been made long ago to combine kama/sickle....and then you would have had a precedent not to repeat it with things like butterfly sword/dagger

[Ross Byers]

I cleaned up some things. I'm also going to go ahead and lock this thread.